Subtheme: Exclusionary Zoning

One way to jumpstart housing production is zoning reform or upzoning. Zoning is the set of municipal regulations that determines what kind of buildings can be built where. But years of exclusionary zoning practices have led to towns that favor large, costly, single-family residences which end up unaffordable for people with lower–and even moderate–incomes. Students investigating this subtheme could look comparatively across Metro Boston towns and cities to see which ones have the most exclusionary zoning and who, demographically speaking, is affected. Student projects might also explore what could replace exclusionary, single-family zoning, such as “living little” (see below) and “living denser”.

Background Reading

  1. Cities Start to Question an American Ideal: A House With a Yard on Every Lot (NYTimes) – An article that shows what portions of different cities have exclusionary zoning. Students could model a comparative city-based analysis on this story to understand which Metro Boston cities and towns have the most restrictive zoning regulations.
  2. Exclusionary by Design: An Investigation of Zoning’s Use as a Tool of Race, Class, and Family Exclusion in Boston’s Suburbs, 1920 to Today – A video as well as a report that goes through the history of exclusionary zoning practices in Boston.
  3. Living Little – A short article with images and set of YouTube videos by our partner, MAPC, that explains why “living little” is part of the solution to housing affordability. This can be seen as part of the solution to exclusionary zoning, e.g., upzoning to allow smaller homes like the ones featured here.
  4. Minneapolis Land Use Reforms Offer a Blueprint for Housing Affordability – In 2023, Minneapolis did something pretty radical for US zoning: they eliminated exclusionary single family zoning and established that two-family and three-family buildings could be built on all residential lots in the city. This is a short report about preliminary outcomes from this and prior land use reforms.

Datasets for the Final Project

  1. Dataset of Metro Boston municipalities with single family zoning vs other housing zoning – The most restrictive form of zoning is single family zoning that doesn’t permit other forms of housing. Using this dataset you can compare which towns have the highest rates of this exclusionary zoning, similar to the NYTimes article above. Also included is demographic data about who lives in the single-family zoned areas vs who lives in the other housing zones.
  2. You might also want to take a look at the datasets outlined in Upzoning.

Other Creative Data Ideas

  1. Real estate listings – E.g. Zillow, Redfin. Possibly a good source of photographic information about specific properties, including interior shots. Make sure you use these with credit to the source.
  1. Affordable Homes Act – See specifically the provision about Inclusionary Zoning by Simple Majority which help make upzoning easier as well as the Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) As-Of-Right which would allow anyone to build an in-law apartment or small residence on their existing property as a way to increase density. The bill: summary, proposed bill.
  2. The MBTA Communities Act. This legislation was enacted by the prior administration (Baker) and the state is now trying to implement it, but it is becoming controversial in some places. The basic idea is that towns served by the T or Commuter Rail have to upzone around the station service areas, an idea known as “transit-oriented development”.